| |
“You say the police are looking for two American men,” Nailah said, leading them into the back of the shop. “But they will not notice a Tunisian man and a woman in a burqa.”
Aidan started to protest. He didn’t do drag. He never had. In the first place, he was too hairy, down to his fingers and toes, to ever pass as a woman without a lot of painful hair removal. In the second place, it had never appealed to him. He didn’t want to be a woman, and he didn’t want to dress like one.
But he did want to get out of Tataouine, and get that account number to the Tuareg tribe who would use the money for schools and health care. “Since I doubt they have women as tall as you in this country, I guess that puts me in the dress,” he said to Liam.
“I’m sure you’ll look lovely,” he said.
“That is not the point,” Nailah said. She handed Aidan what looked like a polyester funeral shroud, though it was a hideous shade of light blue, brassier than the color of the iron railings in Tunis, darker than the policeman’s shirt. “You may have to, how you say, bend down.”
She gave Liam a cloak like the ones they had seen men wearing in Matmata, and a scarf to wind around his head. With Nailah’s help, Aidan climbed into the burqa. She was so tiny that she had to step onto a stool to reach his head. The inside of the burqa was claustrophobic, with a narrow slot for his eyes and a filmy veil over his nose and mouth.
It was oddly comforting at first, reminding Aidan of hiding under the covers as a kid with a book and a flashlight. But as he experimented walking around, he realized he had no peripheral vision. He kept catching the voluminous cloth on doorknobs and the edges of cabinets, and Nailah criticized his walk.
“You walk like an American,” she said. “See, look at me.”
She minced slowly, as if she was a small, wary creature. Her whole posture changed. Gone was the little New York gamine; in her place was a woman who looked like property. Aidan tried to mimic her, without much success. “Your shoes are wrong,” she said, standing with her hands on her hips. Aidan was wearing a pair of battered Nikes. “Wait here.”
“I see why Arab men like their women to wear those things,” Liam said, when she’d disappeared out the back door. “You look sexy.”
“Get out of here,” Aidan said.
“No, really. I’m imagining you naked under there, parading around. And I’m the only one who gets to see what you’re hiding.”
“You are seriously deranged,” Aidan said, but he laughed. They flirted for a few minutes, putting aside the problems that faced them, until Nailah returned with a pair of black slippers.
“My cousin has big feet,” she said. “Here, you try these.”
Aidan couldn’t bend over to take his shoes off or put on the slippers, so Liam had to do it. He tickled Aidan’s instep and Aidan squirmed, but Liam got the slippers on. With the burqa hanging down as far as it would go, no one would notice Aidan’s big American feet.
Aidan practiced walking some more, attempting to channel his inner woman, until Nailah was satisfied he could pass.
Then she appraised Liam, hands on hips. “Your scarf is wrong,” she said, climbing back on her stool. She unwound the scarf, tried it one way, then another, until she was satisfied.
“This still doesn’t solve our problem of how we get out of town,” Aidan said.
“You will come with me,” Nailah said. She opened the back door of the shop to a narrow alley. Aidan was reminded of the street in Tunis where he’d nearly been mugged. It seemed like he couldn’t stop getting himself in trouble.
A sleek black Japanese motorcycle with yellow accents leaned against the back wall of the shop. Aidan found it hard to imagine the tiny Nailah perched on it, zooming around the narrow streets of Tataouine. “You know how to ride?” she asked Liam.
He nodded.
“There is only one road south,” she said. “But if you are lucky, they are only stopping tourists.”
“And if we’re not?” Aidan asked.
“We don’t have any choice,” Liam said. “The longer we stay in Tataouine, the greater the chance that they will look here in town for us. We have to get out.”
He straddled the motorcycle, and Aidan tried to get on behind him. It was comical as he struggled with the long burqa. He tried to hitch it up around his waist, but Nailah shook her head. “No woman would ride like that,” she said. She made him sit side-saddle, and pushed and tugged at the cloth around him, draping it down so that his legs were covered.
She stacked Aidan’s backpack on the shelf at the bike’s rear, with Liam’s duffle on top of it, then covered the lot with a ratty sheepskin and tied it all down with bungee cords striped in bright colors. She added a pair of tin cups and a leather canteen full of water.
Aidan caught their reflection in a mirror through the open door of the photo shop. With the scarf wrapped around his head, Liam looked like a typical Tunisian man. And if Aidan hadn’t known he was inside that burqa, he would have assumed the woman behind Liam was his wife.
“Good luck,” Nailah said. “When you reach Remada, leave the motorcycle with Ifoudan. He will get it back to me.”
Liam pulled out his wallet and handed Nailah a sheaf of dinars. “No, no,” she said, trying to back away, but he insisted. She took the bills and folded them into her pocket as Liam gunned the motorcycle. They took off, Aidan clutching Liam’s back, the hem of the burqa flapping in the wind. It took Liam a few blocks to get his bearings, and a feel for the cycle, and then they found the road south.
The soldiers at the road block were occupied with a tour bus packed with foreigners. Aidan saw the girl who had been with the pharmacist’s assistant standing with them, peering at the tourists. A single soldier moved the rest of the traffic along. He glanced at Liam and Aidan, and waved. For a moment, Aidan thought the girl had noticed them, but she turned back to the tourists, and they sped past.
Even with the air rushing by, Aidan was sweltering inside the burqa. It didn’t help that he felt trapped between the bags and Liam’s broad back. Liam’s body heat radiated through to Aidan, as his hands slipped around Liam’s sweaty waist.
Aidan knew they couldn’t stop until they reached Remada. Who knew what other roadblocks there might be? If he slipped out of the burqa, he’d be very conspicuous, an American man behind a Tunisian.
The map said the trip was 80 kilometers from Tataouine to Remada, but it seemed like a lot longer. There was no break from the unrelenting sun, and even the river they crossed halfway there was no more than a trickle. Aidan had never been so uncomfortable in his life. The sweat drenched him, and he began to itch, under his arms, around his waist, at his groin. The burqa felt like a giant blanket, and his body chafed against the motorcycle seat and against Liam. He worried he’d end up with blisters on his thighs.
A short while after they crossed the tiny river, a breeze picked up. But the relief was short-lived, because the wind continued to grow, whipping tiny grains of sand around us. Aidan realized what it was just as Liam shouted “Sandstorm,” over his shoulder. “We’ve got to find some shelter.”
“Where?” Aidan asked. There was nothing around them. Not even a tall dune. The desert stretched around them as flat as a dinner plate. Within minutes, Aidan couldn’t even see more than a few feet ahead. “Pull over,” he called out.
He thought Liam was about to; he felt the motorcycle starting to slow. But then they hit a sandy patch on the road and began to skid.
